The Belarusian authorities has reprimanded two leading independent newspapers for their coverage of this week's bombing of the subway in Belarus that killed 13, officials said Friday, raising fears that the government could use the attack to muzzle a few remaining independent media outlets.

Belarusian authorities said Tuesday they have identified a suspect of a subway bombing as the death toll rose to 12, with more than 200 wounded. The opposition, meanwhile, voiced fears that the attack may lead to an increased crackdown on dissent.

The nuclear crisis in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami led people to make comparisons to previous nuclear accidents at Chernobyl in 1986 and Three Mile Island in 1979. Human error at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian SSR, now Ukraine, resulted in a nuclear meltdown in which radiation spread across the Ukraine to Belarus and Russia.

The leader of the last dictatorship in Europe appeared to have quashed any immediate threat to his continuing rule, declaring Monday that he was the overwhelming winner of a presidential election that ended with a violent crackdown on reformists hoping for change.